Insert ominous music here

Oh Verizon

Since when did .002 cents become the same as .002 dollars? I wish I could multiply cents and get the same figure in dollars (somehow).

I'd be a lot richer :/

Oh Hwang

First he gets done for fraud, then we find out he tried to get eggs from his research assistants and now it turns out he was even going to associate himself with the Russian Mafia:

The defense also said the embezzlement charges, involving funds provided by corporate sponsors, should be dropped, as most of the funds in question are accounted for or still in the bank. Hwang stood by his previous claims that suspicious personal items--such as a car for himself and his wife--were bought with money earned from lectures and publications. Hwang said that some of the allegedly misappropriated money was used for expenses in pursuing unsuccessful projects, which included an effort to clone a mammoth that involved the Russian mafia, and another project to clone a Siberian tiger native to North Korea. In official documents, he claimed to have used the money to buy cows for research.

That's sure a long way to fall from the top of the mountain to...well... this. The only thing I want to know is, what on earth were the Russian mafia wanting with a Wooly Mammoth?

What a mouthful!

There is something almost disturbing about watching this video of a pelican eating a pidgeon (I kid you not). I didn't know that pelicans were even prone to attacking pidgeons, but I tell you what, that pidgeon seems to have put up one hell of a fight before going down (literally). The amazing things that animals do.

Treadmills and Shrimps!

For some reason, this really amuses me.



I have no idea why.

Nutrigenetics sting

While perusing the American Journal of Bioethics, I noticed this really quite amusing piece by Ricky Lewis on nutrigenetics. Some companies are apparently taking samples of peoples DNA and then using the resulting data to try to customise diets to them based on their genes. Sounds like a fairly neat idea in theory, but the Government Accountability Office (GAO) decided to put one such company to the test:

Here’s how the GAO targeted four nutrigenetics company websites. They took DNA from a 9-month-old girl and from a 48-year-old man. Then they concocted diet/lifestyle profiles for 14 “fictitious consumers,” 12 from the baby’s DNA, and 2 from the man’s. For example, the baby girl was transmogrified into a 6-foot-tall, 210-pound 45-year-old man who smokes and doesn’t exercise, drinks a lot of coffee, and eats a lot of fat. The baby also became a 72-year-old woman who weighs 100 pounds and stands 4’9”, regularly exercises, never smoked, doesn’t drink coffee, and eats fried foods. To make it interesting, the researchers also submitted cat and dog DNA but did not disclose whether the cat preferred Friskies to Fancy Feast or the dog Alpo to Purina so as not to tip their hand.

You'll have to read the whole thing, because spoiling the result would really ruin all the fun.

Tired of the same ole whack a mole game

In a post entitled "I grow weary of ID", Jason Rosenhouse points out some more hillarious ID contradictions. The stupidity of Bruce Chapmans comments where Bruce claims that there is ID research, but nobody will tell you who is doing it and where it is being done because of some darwinist 'conspiracy', is not really being sold very easily. Quite frankly, to rip off a common New Zealand advertising meme:

ID has a prosperous and highly successful research program. Yeah right.

As it still appears that the ID movement doesn't even have a theory to begin with you can imagine my skepticism at anyone claiming there is ID 'research' being done using a DOA "theory". This really isn't the point I want to talk about though from Jasons post, but rather this from a little later in:

Which brings me to the title of this entry. When I got started in this biz, I felt like I learned something by taking the ID folks seriously. The No Free Lunch theorems are beautiful and fascinating, but I would know nothing about them if the sordid little mind of William Dembski hadn't figured how to use them to bamboozle people into thinking their were mathematical flaws with evolution. The research I did while investigating the claims of Jonathan Wells and Icons of Evolution taught me a great deal about the real state of biological research. Fighting these ignorant charlatans was an act of grim necessity, but at least they provided some food for thought.

But look where they are now. They had their day in court and came off looking like fools. The only books they talk about now are the hysterical political screeds by Ann Coulter and Jonathan Wells, neither of which presents anything remotely new. And when you ask them to tell you about the state of ID research, not even actual results mind you but just a description of the work itself, they get belligerent and nasty.

You know, I have to agree entirely with this but with a slightly different tangent. Once upon a time I used to learn a lot out of arguing with creationists and the ID crowd on the various issues about biological evolution. Having to look through the scientific literature on a wide range of subjects from geology, mathematics, biology and more to whack the various pseudo-babble put forth used to be an entertaining and perhaps dare I say, even educational, enterprise. I would always come away having found something new in my searches for counter arguments.

Now, tying in things about why I've been so absent from blogging as well, is the fact I've been reflecting somewhat on the whole issue and my attitude has changed heavily. You see, while once I was like Jason always learning something from these debates, I now fail to get anything out of them at all anymore. After a while, it's always the same arguments, it's always the same counter-arguments that can effectively deal with that nonsense and just as soon as you do it, the same crap comes up again. It ends up after a while getting to a never-ending game of whack-a-mole and to be perfectly honest I find that extremely boring and just not worth my time anymore.

Sure, the political arguments of creationists (like the ID movement) have advanced continually in trying to strawman some thing or another, but these usually have little or no relevance to anything scientific at all. In fact, there is a complete lack of any new science in terms of the latest creationist nonsense. It's always the same flagella, darwinist conspiracy, second law of thermodynamics (dressed up with new rubbish to make it seem more intelligent than it really is) and such forth arguments that have been put up for years. The terms change, but ultimately it's just the same nonsense, it's been refuted by many others (usually more specialised than me) and usually really well at that.

So linking things back to my disappearance from blogging, I've had a good think about what I really want to say online and how I want to present myself. To put it simply, the same idiotic creationist arguments just make me highly antagonistic these days. I'm not sure how to describe the feeling I get from arguing with creationists, other than saying it's equivalent to the feeling you would get from telling someone not to put a fork in the electrical socket and watching them do it anyway. It's just got to the point where playing whack-a-mole just gets highly derisive or sarcastic replies from me. I can't even be bothered really arguing much with creationists now like I used to.

For example, I would once have spend most of an afternoon or evening researching the topics in question, interpreting things (or asking someone who did know) and then posting my counter arguments. This of course is very time expensive as you can imagine, unless of course the argument moved into my areas of interest in microbiology or immunology (where I already knew the required information). But over time, I've found that I can literally, search back posts I've written elsewhere and just copy and paste it. The arguments put forth in a post from 3 years ago (if it still exists) can often suffice completely for answering a creationist argument today. Again, this is because creationist arguments have merely adapted depending on political circumstances and putting new lingo on old redundant arguments. It's still the same broken arguments despite the changes in how it's presented.

This has just led to me getting more sarcastic in my posting style with creationists and I no longer bother putting in the time or effort. To neutral observers, I'm sure at times this has seemed that I've either not had an answer to the argument or that I've given up in frustration. In reality, it's just getting bored of whack-a-mole and wondering why I'm wasting my time. Even after taking a huge break from blogging and even generally arguing about the subject on internet forums, I just haven't been able to lose that feeling of "Yay, whack-a-mole again, what could I be doing with my time?".

Inevitably, there comes a point where you just have to say to yourself "Why bother anymore?". I don't get anything out of arguing with creationists anymore, I don't learn anything, I've heard all the defunct arguments they can put forward before and so I really wonder "What's the point?". It's not like I've got some complacency about creationists, just because they continually make themselves to be idiots in the most public of ways possible like at the disasterous Kitzmiller vs. Dover trial doesn't mean they aren't a very powerful political (but note, not scientific) movement. There are places on the internet however that cater to smacking creationists around very efficiently, like the Pandasthumb, Pharyngula and of course Talk Origins.

With my time however, I feel I can get a lot more about talking about issues in science that actually interest me. How biological systems like the immune system evolved, issues in science like the ethics surrounding gene therapy, public and animal health issues like the Escherchia coli H7:O157 outbreak in spinach (or Tb in badgers ;)) for example. Playing whack-a-mole with creationists is just not worth the time or effort anymore, especially considering how many other fascinating things in science there are to discuss (plus I still have a looooong list of stuff to write about ;)).

Finally, to end this rather large rant I'd like to comment that I don't care what ID researchers think of their own research. Until they publish some of this much vaunted 'research' that is always just around the corner (Always...) I couldn't care less. Talking about doing research is entirely irrelevant to the point of actually doing it. When the ID/creationist movement produces actual science I think it will be worth discussing. Somehow I doubt the ID/creationist lot are bothering with the "science" part and will stick to the "baffling people with bullshit" part.

Oh and I am in an especially good mood because I just began my PhD <3 Yes, that does mean new website soon, because I've been meaning to move to a new site once I got all of this sorted out.

Diet Coke + Mentos = Awesome

HA!

What is going on?

Well, it's probably as good a time as any to explain what on earth has been happening with this blog and such forth over the numerous dark months of inactivity. As always with many things in life, things that occur in the "real world" often interfere with other plans that one has for things online. Unfortunately for me, I was intending to have a new website up and running with many of my previous posts updated and revised. This very obviously never happened, primarily due to a wide array of things getting in the way of my plans. The main reason that nothing has happened just yet is that I've been running around sorting out my PhD for the past couple of months (an unbelievable amount of paperwork is involved!).

Now that everything appears to be in order and that I'm starting to get re-interested in blogging again, means that with some luck I should be moving to my new website at some point soon. This of course is all conditional on other things, such as my initial workload in the lab and other things that could potentially interfere.

I do apologise for the long stretch of absence and general lack of blogging on my part.

43rd Skeptics Circle

The 43rd Skeptics Circle has been posted over at Adventures in Ethics and Science. I hear there are puppies involved.

42nd Skeptics Circle

Welcome to the 42nd meeting of the skeptics circle. Many of you have wondered where I have been over the past months and what has exactly been going on down in the lowest part of the world. Well my excuse is that, uhhhh, hmmmm...Ah yes, we've been invaded by the undead [of course, why didn't I think of this before]. Oh yes, they are everywhere down here I assure you and we're knee deep in them. Billions of them. Here is an example picture:



See what I mean? Absolutely crawling with the undead [they are there I assure you, they are just camera shy]. Can't cross the street without having to dodge numerous zombies all after your brains. What's worse is they are all into various forms of pseudoscience, woo and quackery. Perhaps it might all be the result of dumping too much nuclear waste into the rivers and I assure you, we'll be returning to the subject of nuclear waste later in the circle. Everything ultimately is blamed on nuclear waste eventually anyway. First it's poisoning the water, then ruining the air quality, then making people sick and eventually raising the living dead. You know how it goes.

So it's a good thing you've all turned up so we can try and set them straight with some good old fashioned skepticism to the head. I've personally always liked the sledgehammer of science myself, but the lawn mower of anti-woo has its own appeal [even if it's very messy] and there is always the shotgun of reason. Whatever your weapon of choice, there are many ways of dispatching crazy pseudoscientific zombies, but the problem with the living dead and I'm sure you can appreciate the many problems we are facing, is that they keep coming back regardless. Reminds me of arguing with creationists, no matter how many times you dispatch their arguments there are always more of them and the old ones come back anyway [tis quite the problem with the unliving dead, you can't kill them you see, because they are already dead. Haha, see the dilemma?].

Currently the creationists have been shacking up with a really good friend of theirs: the dreaded Hitler zombie. While not hanging out in my pool (making it all mucky) and shouting incomprehensible things at people he doesn't like, the Hitler zombie often enjoys eating the brains of people making ridiculous comparisons between evolution, himself, NAZIdom and various other aspects of the third Reich. Thankfully, Scientia natura tackles some of the ridiculous arguments creationists make on this topic in evolution, Darwin and Hitler. When they aren't trying to compare evolution with Hitler, creationists resort to other ridiculous arguments instead as Tara Smith from Aetiology covers in Influenza viruses = evidence for design. Those whacky ID creationists, what won't they claim? Finally, the Pandas Thumb has a lovely series covering the latest collection of ridiculous claims in Johnathan Wells' new book. I don't recommend buying the book and instead just reading the rebuttal. Your sanity will thank me for it later. If you ask me, I'd rather face the zombies than deal with creationists nonsense.

Staying on the science front in this circle, Jonswift has another piece of wonderful satire covering how science is undead-errr how science is dead. Haha. *Ahem*. Sorry about that, couldn't resist a little zombie themed humour there. Carrying on, Divided we Stand, United we Fall takes on some of the bizarre claims that Anne Coulter has made about global warming researchers (among other thing). Personally, I keep a copy of her book around with me at all times as zombies won't attack you when they see it. Seems to fool them into thinking you're one of them, which is very handy for popping down to the dairy for a few moments without harassment.

Speaking of taking creationists to task, the Pooflinger writes about the stupidity inherent in having to consider 'both sides' in back of the book. Rockstars' ramblings also comments on the fallacy of using 'both sides' to justify anti-evolution nonsense. Finally, speaking of math, the Bad Astronomer also has a public service announcement, reminding us in the skeptical community that it's always healthy to correct your own mistakes. Especially when they are mathematical.

Moving along from the creationists, remember earlier on how I mentioned that Nuclear Waste? Well, it turns out there is a great solution for that and it's even sponsored by a celebrity! Yes, I'm talking about using Kabbalah Water to clean up nuclear waste and Madonna apparently really likes the idea. Thankfully, some of our contributors have decided to wham some sense into this undead beast, with Skeptico commenting that Madonna solves nuclear waste problem. If that wasn't enough, Humbugonline also tackles the issue in Mad Madonna the Comedian. I wonder if that water works on zombies- or was it holy water that was supposed to be effective against the undead?

The subject of this circle now turns onto the ever fun topic area of medical woo, pseudoscience and just plain crazy. Firstly, we'll begin with the Beaver examiner noting that South Africa donates $100-million towards garlic research. This should show those normal 'HIV priests' that clovology should be taken seriously as garlic research is seriously important for numerous reasons. Take it from me, when you're knee deep in zombies then come the vampires. What's good on vampires? That's right, Vampires. South Africa will be making a good investment in anti-vampire technology for the future. Speaking of Garlic, scientia natura also recognise how powerful it can be in a quack healers deception.

Orac from Respectful Insolence brings us some more skeptical blogging to do with medical woo in two cases, firstly the pause that refreshes and heals. I always wondered why people told me yellow snow was bad for you. He also brings us a look at Abraham Cherrix, a child whose parents are attempting to avoid conventional treatments so they can use nutty altie ones in starchild Abraham Cherrix: It's over. Unfortunately, when it comes to mistakes that occur with normal conventional treatments and alties, things never work out as Bronze Dog explains.

Carrying onto our final skeptical topics for tonight, a guest post by Mum to Laura on Autism Street wonders what people would think of a "blindness spectrum". EoR, over at the second sight wonders at the tactics some crazies will go to try and sell their books to the gullible in Jesus is real - Oh, and buy my book! PS: You should buy my upcoming book as well: How to defend yourself from a zombie attack with nothing but a spoon, a wire and some table salt. Speaking of somewhat strange things people propose, Socratic Gadfly covers the use of regaining your 'inner child' to treat abuse cases in some thoughts on child abuse recovery counseling, AA, PTSD and related matters. Finally, the Saga of Runolf wonders just what happened to animal planet in the great animal planet disappointment.

Also, before we all leave satisfied in a skeptical driven zombie genocide well done, let us all bear tribute to Douglas Adams who has long since ceased to be with us. Nothing with the number '42' in it can go without at least mentioning him. He was a really great writer and he will always be missed. So that's all for the circle this week and most importantly, thanks to all those who submitted articles. I do hope you've enjoyed this entertaining romp around skeptical thinking and be prepared for the next circle, which will be hosted by Janet D. Stemwedel at Adventures in Ethics and Science. Anyway, it's time for me to go and- wait, what's that sound at the door? Moaning? Hungry moaning? Scratching? Cracking... Oh no...they've breached the defences! There are hundreds of them, they're in the room and oh dear Go[.sd.assd.zhjai

[Disclaimer: Yes, somewhere along the line I have gone completely and utterly mad. MUAHAHHAHAHAHAHA]

A very confused skeptics circle

Oh Skeptico, how much fun it must be to have someone first smurf you and then make a blog with a similar name as well! Confused? Well so was I, but all the answers are in this weeks skeptics circle hosted by our good pal Skeptico and his...uhhh pet smurf.

As for me, things will be starting to change shortly although it will be after the weekend or so. I'm going away for a weekend to help move stuff around in a relatives house so I probably won't be available. After that, it's about time to move things along with my new blog I think :D

Carnival of the wee animacules

The latest edition of all things small and microbial has been posted at Aetiology. The carnival seems to be going into a monthly format now from it's previous bi-weekly one, which indicates that we need a few more regular hosts and those willing to submit entries. Make sure you let Tara (from Aetiology of course ;)) know if you want to submit something to the carnival or host a future edition.

Where am I?

As a couple of commenters have wondered where I've gone I'll give everyone a quick update as to what has happened. Basically, I'm making a new site and I've basically busy doing that at the moment. Stimulated by Ocellated who suggested going to a .com and going to word-press (which I've concluded I rather like), I've started to design and move most of the stuff on this blog to a new one. It's not done yet, partly because I suck at web-design and am more of less doing things by a random 'trial and error' process and I've had a bit of drama. For example having one of my teeth removed recently (long story) and been busy organising various other real life dramas (real life drama is the best kind I've found). So that's been a bit of distraction from my goal of making a much improved site that is a little 'my own' as opposed to 'generic template' style here.

Until then, I've been a little active on another blog I'm a co-contributor on, namely Limed for the Truth, which is a blog set up by members of the Penny Arcade community and has a wide array of different posts and topics. I recently re-wrote and updated an earlier piece I did on this blog discussing antibiotics over there if you're into that sort of thing. As for the exact future of this blog, it's probably going to be inactive shortly and this will probably be one of the last updates here. Once I've got my new blog up and functional I'll obviously be posting a link. Until then there won't be a lot of activity here except for the odd random post. I'll be posting more frequently (on similar topics) over on Limed for the Truth though. Including the importance of keeping your dental microbes in check, especially when you crack a tooth and don't go to your dentist until it's too late....

For reading in the mean-time, I would suggest having a look at the stony skeptics circle over at The Second Sight, which was posted a wee while ago (I've been on the net a bit sporadically as of late ;)). Additionally, tommorow there will be the carnival of the wee animacules at Aetiology if you're wanting some microbial goodness.

So the short and skinny of it all is that I'm making a new site and organising stuff in "real life" (whatever that is ;)). As I'm rather keen and interested in my new site, I've kind of relegated this one a wee bit while I work on there. If you want to know what I'm doing in the mean-time, I will be posting every so often over at Limed for the Truth. Oh and yes indeed Mr. Swift, I did take a bit of time to play some videogames ;) Gotta get them before I start my PhD and subsequently won't have the time to play them :D

Still alive

Just a post to let you guys know that I'm still alive and trying to figure out what I'm wanting to do with the site. Unfortunately, with my graduation ceremony coming up in only a couple of days I've been a little busy handling that at the moment. I should probably have decided to attend the graduation ceremony back in december last year, but that would require the prompt return of the various paperwork involved. Unfortunately, while relocating to another part of the country it turns out that's not something that was particularly possible to do.

Normal blogging will resume eventually, but I've given up trying to make predictions on when exactly that is going to happen. :)

Oh blog memes

This one I noticed from Orac, PZ Myers and Grrlscientist was fairly amusing:

Your Theme Song is Born to Be Wild by Steppenwolf

"I like smoke and lightning Heavy metal thunder Racin' with the wind And the feelin' that I'm under" A total independent spirit, you can't be held down or fenced in. You crave the feeling of wind on your face... and totally freedom.

What's Your Theme Song?

At least it isn't Hit Me Baby One More time or something. That would be just sneaky.

iNoodle

May our music be touched and protected by his Noodly Appendage.

One judge with a sense of humour

The British Judge that threw out the plagiarism case against Dan Brown and the Da Vinci Code has had a bit of fun with his decision. As it turns out, he's inserted various italicised letters into the overall text and codebreakers are trying to figure out what message he left. Which it seems some clever chap managed to do (see the linked article). I was hoping for something on how silly the whole case was to begin with, but the judge was just having a bit of fun it would appear.

At least he has a sense of humour.

The 33rd skeptics circle

The next edition of the skeptics circle has been posted at Science and Politics and contains the usual skeptical goodness for digestion. I recall that Orac is still looking for future hosts and so it might be worth paying him a visit if you'd be interested in doing that.

Site redesign

I finished Dragon Quest VIII and so that means things will be getting back to normal around here pretty shortly. First up I'm hoping to get some ideas for redesigning the site. As you can see, this blog isn't overly different in look to pretty much every other blog on blogger. It looks a little bland as a result to me and it always somewhat miffs me that it looks like every other blog. I've done a bit of 'personalisation' on the site every so often, like adding the little antibody under the title (that's what the Y shaped globular thing is if you've ever wondered). Overall however, it's still pretty much the same as it was when I first started it.

Now I'm not saying there is anything wrong with the good old blogger.com template. It's perfectly functional and my numerous experiments with it have allowed me to figure out quite a bit of HTML. The guy who made the thing originally certainly did a very good job, but it's just not mine if you can appreciate what I'm getting at. So I intend to 'personalise' the site over the next couple of weeks. What this means is all sorts of random errors and general chaos. I don't expect most of the things I try and do to work the first time (if at all), so if the blog explodes or something then just assume I've done something horrible to it.

The other thing I'm trying to figure out is my RSS feed. Apparently it's not working, or working some of the time or it just doesn't behave in any sensible manner. To be honest I'm still rather clueless as to what I've done to it and am working to correct the problem. With luck the site redesign will allow me to figure out what exactly I did to it.

Finally, if you're looking for some reading to do and haven't seen the latest carnival of the wee animacules, then that was posted recently at the Biotech Weblog. It was fairly small last week though so we need a few more people making submissions. Or alternatively, a couple of regular submitters not playing computer games :p